Late last year, president Obama signed a law that makes it possible to indefinitely detain terrorist suspects without any form of trial or due process. Peaceful protesters in Occupy movements all over the world have been labelled as terrorists by the authorities. Initiatives like SOPA promote diligent monitoring of communication channels. Thirty years ago, when Richard Stallman launched the GNU project, and during the three decades that followed, his sometimes extreme views and peculiar antics were ridiculed and disregarded as paranoia - but here we are, 2012, and his once paranoid what-ifs have become reality.

Defective by design means defective. The flaw of DRM is application of physical concepts to ideas and information. That will always fail.

I'm sorry, but I'm not convinced you're thinking for yourself - I get the impression that you're just repeating something someone told you.

If a company sold media with terms and conditions that said "We only grant you permission to play this media on our media player", would that be perfectly acceptable to you if DRM wasn't used to enforce the terms and conditions that their customers agree to and are legally bound to comply with?

Are you sure you have a problem with DRM (technology intended to enforce legally binding copyright restrictions), and don't have a problem with the copyright restrictions themselves?